Urijah Faber, Sage Northcutt’s coach at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California, is hoping it doesn’t come to that. He says he’s personally spoken to the UFC and encouraged them to open their check books to keep the young fighter on the payroll.

“I’ve talked to the UFC and I said look, this is the place for Sage, he can be world champion in the UFC,” Faber said recently at a press event for Quintet 3 (transcript via Bloody Elbow). “For them, that would be massive. For Sage, that would be massive. Now the question is, it is going to be much more lucrative for him to go somewhere else as a prizefighter, can you get paid double or triple somewhere else? That’s the question.”

“I think what happens in this scenario is, you go out on the free market and you see what else is out there, and then you see what the UFC is offering. UFC has spent a lot of time, energy, and effort building Sage, he’s one of the poster boys for everything they represent, their stores, their sponsors, so it makes sense that they would make him a good offer.”

Urijah Faber also discussed the fact that Sage Northcutt is probably going to get paid a lot more than other fighters of his age an experience level.

“You’re not Sage Northcutt. If you don’t like it, I went through the same thing,” he said. The world is not equal, unfortunately. If you want something, you gotta fight for it. Sage has done his homework.”